[Bathers on the beach]

1986.56.600.a
Date
Dimensions
11 3/8 x 15 1/4 in. (28.9 x 38.7 cm)
Estate/Inventory Number
O 63
Collection
National Gallery of Art, Gift of The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc., 1986.56.600.a. © Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko
Remarks
This watercolor of three bathers on the beach was almost certainly painted in Gloucester, Massachusetts, during the summer of 1934 when Rothko and Edith vacationed there with the Averys—Milton (1885–1965), Sally, and March—and Esther and Adolph Gottlieb (1903–1974). The tripartite composition—a broad swath of peach sand, a thin band of cerulean ocean, and a taupe sky above a high horizon line—recalls a larger watercolor Rothko made at Gloucester that same summer (see Related Works on Paper).
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